Readers' comments

Il faut necessaire qui les journalistes de the Economist réfléchir un peu et regarder dans le miroir.
Even the best British journalists live on an island where the 19th century never ended. If they travel abroad they try to confirm their prejudices.France n’est pas Angleterre, qui est un pais avec moins de terres arables et des ressources naturelles. France est le paie qui a le plus grand nombre d’arrivées de touristes. La santé d’économique français est mieux que lequel d’angleterre.
France is not the UK, who is up at the corner at Europe. They should be grateful that their government didn't partake in the Eurozone experiment, otherwise Britain, not Greece would be largest casualty of this crisis.
France has not have any quarter since the end of 2009 or start of 2010. UK itself is reverting in and out of quarterly downturns and recoveries since 2008. The economist is just spilling out its foolish doctrine of Free markets, Pro Business, Pro Rich, Anti Government Intervention which dominate Anglo-Saxon Economic Models. They just cannot fathom that countries with "deviant" economic models like China, the Emerging Economies, or even France can suceed while UK is on the brink of another possible quarterly contraction. They belief that someday, somehow, these countries would fail to understand the need to adopt the Anglo-Saxon model after a serious downturn. Yet, it's the Pax Britannica that is losing out here, and their media are bashing up countries elsewhere like in the Eurozone to divert the attention of the spreading malaise to other vunerable economies

This newspaper tends to be critical. Critical of Berlusconi and Putin, of Sarkozy and Hollande, of China and Rajoy, of Cameron and the EU, of the Euro and Greece, of Merkel and Germany, of France... and Britain. What surprises me is that while in articles criticizing some of the oldest and most prestigious British institutions, like Eton and the BBC [*] no one complains against The Economist per se, for having 'published' the article itself, whenever TE criticizes France (and Spain), on the blog Charlemagne, especially, the thread becomes almost an anti-Economist riot. You click the nicks of some posters you don't know and see that it's their first or second comment, that they registered 24 hours before just for that. I call them the "ad hoc posters". Plus some "guests"...

I don't quite understand this. There are things about this British newspaper I like very much (I read it for a long time) and some others I don't like at all. Sometimes I agree with what they say and sometimes I don't, but I accept them as they are, as I accepted and accept Le Monde, the International Herald Tribune or El País, to mention three newspapers I used to read or I keep reading.

Hell, If you don't like a restaurant because you think it's expensive, the maître is a stupid, the waiters are rude, the cuisine is mediocre and once you even found a cockroach in your salad, why on earth do you keep going to that restaurant? I mean, there are other restaurants in town, you can choose... I know, I know, it's about being critical of the critics, fine, but sometimes it becomes an almost obsessive-compulsive thing. It's 'fashionable' to attack TE.

Franco-British and Anglo-French relationships have lasted for a millennium and are extremely complex. Arte, the Franco-German TV channel, recently showed an interesting programme about that, but I forgot its title. This relationship is full of wars, misunderstandings, prejudices and phobias, but also alliances, agreements and philias. There's a book I read and I strongly recommend: Colin Smith, 'England's Last War Against France, Fighting Vichy 1940-1942', Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Phoenix, 2009/2010. Britain and France, France and Britain, started the second war against Germany as allies on September 3rd 1939 and ended it victoriously as allies on May 7, 1945. Between these two dates Britons and Frenchmen often killed each other in Great Britain, North Africa, West Africa, Syria, Madagascar...

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Two articles from Blighty, a blog apparently ignored by most Continental Europeans. Apparently, Britons are less hypersensitive to criticism than Frenchmen, Spaniards or Germans.

Politics and class

The Eton irrelevance

http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/10/politics-and-class
224 recommendations and 73 comments. Unless I missed it (and I read the whole thread and posted a couple of comments on it) there isn't a single attack against The Economist. Apparently Etonians and other Britons are less hypersensitive to criticism than some Continental Europeans here...

Looks like this thread is hotting up, I'm coming late to the party. If I was a Frenchman I'd probably feel quite warmed by the raised passions between a couple of Rosbifs arguing over my country.

I'm not so I'll say this/ The UK certainly has it's many faults, too numerous to mention. The point is that that doesn't preclude an ostensibly British publication from penning a comment piece on any subject, in this case the country of presumably a fair few of its readership.

TE subscribers are reputed to be the highest earning, best educated of any publication in the world including the New Yorker. I'd say that some influential people are at least partly informed by it.

For those that that are rushing to defende France and the French way of life, it's nothing personal, they just want to help in the best way they know how deregulate, deregulate, deregulate! Oh and cut taxes!

British deregulation gave all of Europe BSE (you know, mad cow) when regulations against the use of unheated animal meal in animal feed were dropped by Baroness Thatcher on purely ideological grounds.

The costs were tremendous (human suffering does not count of course).

In addition, the consumption of beef with bone attached was prohibited as a consequence (regulation of individual behavior does not count either, it's only corporations which need freedom).

But in Italy, where I lived at that time, that regulation was soon laughed off as Italians went on ordering large, rare Fiorentine (beef ribs) in red meat restaurants.

In the end, that regulation-deregulation cycle made a few civil servants wealthier, not to mention a few morticians. Baroness Thatcher would have been well inspired to be down with the flu on the day she decided the Crown's vets were too expensive.

This deregulation argument is one that could go back and forth. A contributory factor to the the c. 15,000 excess deaths of French elderly in France in 2003 was the 35 work week for doctors. We can all cite examples of where an action or inaction had an unintended consequence. The argument that TE and for the record I advocate is that for the most part consenting adults and businesses can make decisions for themselves without any government dictating those actions.

Poor old Bitchlad, he makes one comparison that he is quite entitled to (and by the way I only partially agree with) and Jamesyar and the other would be 'dictators' pile in. They don't reply to the comments or simply say they disagree they pass stupid insults to belittle the man not the idea.....
Well I am a native of Torbay and have lived and worked there for 40 years and I can tell you on that point his impression is spot on. When did Jamesyar last visit yet alone live there or rather try to live there because that is all the people I know are doing now. Before you resort to your usual (on that he is correct too) insults be aware that I am just a humble taxi driver and I'm insulted by the arrogant s..ts I carry every day so water off a ducks back as they say....

Actually Jamesyar it would appear 'garbage' is more your forte than mine, sorry if I dared disagree with your obviously superior intellect, I was under the obviously mistaken impression that this was a comment page and we lived in democracies. It was not I that cited the extreme examples of both countries...just an opinion which prompted 'rose tinted little Englander' typical replies rather than reasoned debate and that say's it all really.....

When you start making personal attacks, you just make a fool of yourself.
Your rant was ridiculous, ignorant, and in now way contributed to 'reasoned debate'. If you cannot make sensible contributions (or even manage to use the reply button) then don't comment. Hiding behind 'its my right' is childish and facile.

That was barely even an English sentence.
Are you really retired? Given the hypocrisy about insults, childish personal attacks, lack of self awareness, uncontrolled anger, and poor writing skills, it seems more likely you are around 12 years old.

Actually in response to the couple if comments below I am not reasonably well off nor a Daily Mail reader, I am most definitely middle class and the comparison is based on visiting Torbay and Birmingham. I have lived in both and in France live in the Aide with one of the worst unemployment problems in France. Just because someone's opinion may not fit your prejudgement doesn't mean it is invalid.

'Just because someone's opinion may not fit your prejudgement doesn't mean it is invalid.'

No, when you come out with the a ridiculous tabloid rant full of moronic generalisations, it becomes invalid. Please also note that criticise others for prejudgement after spouting garbage only reveals a lack of self awareness.

Tabloids don't just include The Sun or the other red tops. The genre also includes The Daily Mail, Daily Express and others. They are in many ways worse - a veneer or respectability hiding a poisonous attitude of self loathing, ugly generalisations and xenophobia.

Oh thank you oh glorious intellect, who would have guessed that your response would be to insult and piss take? Reading your responses to others on different subjects it doesn't follow a pattern does it? Actually I do have a little excuse in that normally typing on a mobile suffices to pass on my opinions, the keyboard is small and my old eyes tired. But don't worry soon you can have all the people who don't agree with you shot and all the newspapers you don't like closed down. As we say by me d... c.... I'm sure your well travelled mind knows that one....

Some blindness seems to work both ways.
Cassandra writes " the need to reform the rigid labour market (unemployment is now over 10%)", which implies he fully endorses the axiomatic link between freedom to fire and readiness to hire.
Yet in France, every step down that way (and there have been a few, maybe you should compare the protection workers enjoyed in the sixties with the pitiful shreds left) has led to an increase in unemployment, as employers laid off with gay abandon and promised, with equally gay abandon, they would hire when the times were better.
So maybe Cassandra could enlighten us as to the best way to make the potion work; up to now it has had all the unpleasant effects of a purgative, with none of the supposed benefits, yet you are urging us to swallow more?
A good doctor takes feedback and experience from his patients into account. Up to now TE has done neither, instead loftily basking in its own brilliance. There is much more soul searching in France at this time than in TE's premises. So don't be surprised when some impatience emerges in the patient.

Good points, nice to see someone willing to engage without deflecting criticism at other countries like the UK.

Perhaps the money those employers saved in laying people off has increased profits which in turns increases taxes to the state and anyone who invested in those shares (French pensions). Its not all bad.

Perhaps the process needs to complete - it is still very difficult to lay anyone off in France?

he fully endorses the axiomatic link between freedom to fire and readiness to hire.

Well, count me as someone who believes in this link. There are still enormous barriers to firing people in France and Italy to name two countries. In addition to these barriers I would add disincentives to hiring. In the US the employer is responsible for paying half of the retirement tax and is responsible for paying for health insurance. The US solution has been to get around those requirements by only hiring part time workers. On a society wide level, this is a terrible solution.
I think a better pro-employment solution would include the ability to hire and fire at will but a socialization of retirement and health care to the population at large. That would remove disincentives to hire and would promote a more fluid labor market. Not to mention that people provide better service when they know the alternative is losing ones job.

It starts as an affirmation and ends as a question, but either way I'll say this - contrary to widespread myth it's quite easy. But there may be contractual costs. So nobody forced either party to enter into a contract... see, the libertarian bs can be a two-edged switchblade!

Seeing one's country through foreign eyes can be enlightening, but when said eyes wear panoramic blinkers, it quickly grows frustrating...

"I think a better pro-employment solution would include the ability to hire and fire at will but a socialization of retirement and health care to the population at large."

Shifting the burden from workers and enterprises to the taxpayer is a well-discussed alternative. Hollande is exploring that path with the so-called "TVA sociale". So you see we are not that closed to innovation! Still, I shudder to think of the cross-Atlantic heckling...

"Not to mention that people provide better service when they know the alternative is losing ones job"

The best incentive is a gratifying job. This leads me to yet another French flaw TE never mentions, which is the abyssal quality of relationships in the workplace. I would be much more inclined to accept and even applaud criticism of our political elites - which, it should be stressed, are mostly driven by genuine concern for the public good - if it came with some equally sharp assessment of private and corporate contributions to the French downslide. There again TE's prejudices show.

Because to stick ones head in the sand about race often results in not seeing systemic discrimination against members of a race. If one were to find that a much smaller percent of arab French were hired by local government, then that problem could be addressed. If you don't look you don't see and you can't fix.

Having lived in France for 7 years now and finally retired there I travel back to England my home country every year to see friends and thus get a 'snapshot' of the changes. France is far from perfect but come on guys have you looked around in England lately? A massive population of undereducated, overly aggressive and arrogant going nowhere males, benefit dependent slovenly females, a big brother dominated, surveillence controlled society where jobsworths abound and tell the people who pay them what they are allowed to do and how to abide by petty pointless rules, health and safety to the point of the population being scared to do even the most basic service for others. No, I think I'll stay just where I am thank you, no wonder the French get annoyed being 'judged' by the English....

I'm guessing that you're reasonably well off and not living in one of France's Banlieues. The comparison with where you're living and with a deprived British inner city area is a false comparison. You need to compare like with like, ie France's Banlieues with deprived British inner city areas.

Oh, there's worse things you can do in life than read the Daily Snail. And even though I'm no big fan (I'm a Times man, myself), the endless bashing of it - which has become such a cause celebre amongst the liberal metropolitan elite - is wearying. Most of the denigration ("most" underlined and highlighted) has no factual basis. After all, there are people with nothing better to do on social networking forums who create spoof headlines that feed the myth.

I mean, wasn't it the Mail who ran the headline about the suspected murderers of Stephen Lawrence? The Garuniad, Torygraph, Sun, Independent et al didn't have the balls.

A thin-skinned post, bitchlad. It is not a judgement by the English it is an observation. In any case, Britain's faults do not erase France's deficiencies. Even if one wears a soiled shirt, it does not prevent one from recognizing when someone else is splashed with mud.

It would be nice (and appropriate) if TE would produce an equivalent critique of Britain, written by a Frenchman, since their economic performance, and current problems, are not that different. While we're at it, how about appointing a European as Blighty and an Italian as Lexington? Let's stir the cultural pot a little and give some perspective other than the Anglo-Saxon orthodoxy.

Actually, I find it striking to read many Anglophone publications, or to listen to many Anglophone friends and colleagues, and to hear/read them profess eternal, transcending love for France. The article about France's region in this week's issue is an example. The sceneries, the culture, the food, the lifestyle, etc. Goody.

And yet most of the same publications and people would prescribe remedies to France's real and serious problems that would make the place a lot less, well, French, and a lot more, well, Anglo-Saxon. It may very well be a good thing, but it would certainly be quite different.

No, clearly nothing would happen to the sceneries or Renaissance architecture (or only marginally), but a lot of France's cultural and lifestyle attributes are impacted by what is an admittedly over-reaching, cumbersome, and calcified government (and the taxes it needs to exist in its current form).

The fact that it is (mostly) possible for many parents, and especially for ones from lower socio-eco groups, to enjoy a successful career is due to abundant and dirt-cheap (at least compared to, say, here in Australia) crèches and kindergardens that operate in synch with most people's business hours (e.g. not like here where kids are rarely welcome before 8.30, and are out the door at 15.00). Services that are of course overwhelmingly paid for by taxes and organised by the state.

The list is endless, so I just picked one at random that many people can relate to on a daily basis.

The big technical question that really matters is how the state is going to provide such services with less resources. There are huge productivity low-hanging fruits to pick within public services, and also between public services themselves, from national to regional to local.

They may have to sack a bunch of civil servants and cut the benefits of many others, but they may equally find that they should re-allocate resources from plethoric central or regional administrations to depleted front-line service providers (in healthcare and education, for starters).

It is a shame that this fundamental, vital discussion is immediately shouted down by noisy special interests with binary slogans, and span the whole socio-political spectrum. A real shame.

My guess is the special report was probably written mostly or managed by Sophie Pedder who is French and lives in Paris. But anyway, there's a section dedicated to Britain every single week in case you hadn't noticed.

There are indeed productivity issues in many parts of the public sector (not necessarily the state sector; local governments have been incredibly lavish, and squeal much more loudly than civil servant unions when reined in). Incredibly (for a foreigner) they are now being tackled seriously and with the right approach (identifying the bottlenecks and easing them out) rather than the ideological, brutal and inefficient across the board axe wielding of the previous administration.

As for France being either not enough or too much Anglicized... the (non-)issue brings to mind the traditional flurry of photo captions in the Dutch media during the holidays: "France... what a beautiful country... what a pity it's so badly inhabited!"

Also, CornishExpat's point was that it would intellectually interesting to publish coverage of, say, Britain through the eyes of a non-British. Not that there was no coverage of the UK, the US or Europe.

When your teenager has finished school they may need some financial help to continue their education however, there are some industrious students that will work their way through with a variety of jobs for the cash flow necessary to go forward. If this is not the case and Mom and Dad cannot afford to continue the education it's time reality comes to light and they strike out on their own without the comforts of home that they have been accustomed for all their life. This holds true for adults too and the ones that are industrious get the skills necessary and continue on in life, others want to be taken care of and provided their life style at government expense or at the taxpayers expense. When the population thinks like this it will get them off the couch and learn skills necessary to continue, or suffer the consequences.